1. Technical Field
This invention relates to a screening element, and this invention relates in particular to a screening element for motor vehicles with a guiding element for thermal, acoustic and vibration insulation and damping.
2. Related Art
Today there are many applications for screening elements. Special applications or screening elements are found, in particular, in the automotive industry where screening elements are used as heat shields in order, for example, to protect passengers or components from heat and vibrations generated in the engine.
For such applications the screening elements must be sufficiently fixed and rigid to retain their shape at high loads and also to protect passengers from a substantial portion of the heat and vibration generated.
The use of a simple metal plate, e.g. of aluminium or an alloy, is often insufficient because although a metal sheet can reduced infrared radiation and convection, it has too few acoustic insulation properties, for example.
Furthermore, the screening elements mentioned in the state of the art have the unfavorable characteristic that they transmit to the fastening points of the body, for example, the thermal radiation, sound waves and vibrations which are absorbed by the screening element, and therefore ultimately transfer them to the body of the vehicle, which means that the passengers and heat-sensitive components of the vehicle are no longer protected to the optimum decree.
Such a screening element is disclosed, for example, in EP 0 917 507 B1. Here a method is disclosed for producing a heat insulating composite plate. The task of limiting the transmission of heat, sound and vibrations to the components surrounding the composite plate is not discussed here, however.
DE 43 29 411 C2 is also concerned with a heat, sound and vibration insulating and damping material and a method for its production. Here a heat and sound insulating and vibration damping material is disclosed consists of a plurality of films of non-ferrous material, particularly aluminium, that are profiled one on the other.
The material may be used as industrial insulation and as a heat protection shield in the manufacture of motor vehicles and wagons. The problem of providing sufficient containment of the transmission of heat, sound and vibrations to the components surrounding the composite plate is not solved here either.